I really enjoyed this book. Although it still takes me longer to read a non-fiction book than fiction (and I fully recognize that it should) this one was more engaging than the two previous food books I read.
First let me say that if you read this book and then go to the grocery store you will be disgusted. If you already try to pay close attention to what you eat, you probably already know that food additives can be harmful to your health. I still offer that if you read this book and then go to the grocery store you will shop with contempt towards the food industry. This book tackles one of those topics everyone has a vague idea about, but nobody really addresses. We all know (or at least the majority of us probably know) that junk food is full of crap that's not real food. It's chemicals mixed up to imitate food. We have all heard that too much salt can lead to high blood pressure. Too much fat can lead to obesity and heart disease. Too much sugar can lead to obesity and all the complications that arise from obesity.
This book starts out assuming you know all that. So what it's really about is how the big food companies like Nestle, PespiCo, Coca-Cola, Kraft, Frito-Lay, Oscar Mayer, General Mills, Kellogg, etc... try to walk this fine line of appeasing shareholders and the government. Their true purpose in life is to make money for the shareholders. Every once in a while, though, we pesky consumers speak up and say that this "food" is crap and needs to be fixed. Well then they try to fix it, or at least make a half-hearted attempt to look like they are going to fix it. What they are really doing is trying to buy time for the storm to clear up so they can continue on, business as usual.
The author talks to food scientists who, over the years, have created, developed, or 'improved' upon products such as Tang, Instant Jell-O, Lunchables, Oreos, Lays, Campbell's Soup....the list goes on and on. After reading about it all, you really see how much the specialty of Food Science is really mostly science and not a lot of food. What I really appreciated about the book was how the history of companies was explored and how he really dug deep (even using the FOI Act several times) to obtain government records of meetings between the food industry and the government to address the problems of crap food that is making the population sick. Another aspect that I appreciated was how he raised the question: How can the government - USDA and FDA - simultaneously get money and favors from food industry lobbyists yet also supposedly be an advocate for the United States population? The answer, of course, is that they can't. You can't serve two masters. It's clear by this book, that the consumer is the loser in this deal.
There are so many salient points made in this book. I really could just go on and on about how the food companies target minorities and young children for certain products. How there are laws in place that make it easy for unaccountability to be the status quo when things go south. How they try to manipulate the USDA daily recommendations for nutrients. How they continue to add salt, sugar, and fat to foods creating a pseudo-addiction. What's most alarming is there is data out there now about what specifically needs to change if we are ever to consider processed food edible, but the big players are unwilling to budge. Incidentally, while reading this book I went to the grocery store on two occasions and never before was I so hyper vigilant of the horrible options on the shelves. I highly recommend this book if you want to further open your eyes to the travesty that is the United States food industry.
Their bottom line is money. My bottom line is to take good care of myself. So I guess we will be at odds with one another for quite some time.
This quote sums up the book quite nicely:
"It's simply not in the nature of these companies to care about the consumer in an empathetic way."
